2012 Toyota Yaris: A fresh take results in an orangutan's car

The Toyota Yaris has rapidly made a name for itself as one of the best-made little subcompacts money can buy. The quintessential Toyota and the true heir to the old Corolla's crown, the tiny little runabout has become a paragon for incessant reliability that's second to none. Initially slighted as only slightly less ugly than the Echo is replaced, the Yaris remained a stalwartly simplistic vehicle over its previous generations, and quickly found itself outpaced by its cohorts in this extremely competitive marketplace. So, for 2012, Toyota shook the Etch-A-Sketch once more, and set to work drafting themselves an all-new Yaris.  Thankfully. I say that because in all honesty, while the old Yaris was dependable, reliable, and practical, driving it from Point A to Point B was only slightly more interesting than having Ferris Bueller's teacher read you War and Peace. While watching paint dry. And documenting the growth of grass. 

But then BOOM! The new Yaris bursts on to the scene in all its gawky, bulgy glory like a midget wrestler suplexing your retinas. Gone is the goofy guppy grille and dazed headlights, replaced instead by Toyota's take on Dick Dastardly's grinning countenance! Ok, fine... maybe it's a bit closer to Muttley. But, in any case, toast is the pigeon-toed stance and giant wheel gaps, supplanted by properly offset wheels and grown-up sized tires! And hey! When you see it drive past it no longer looks like a bubble floating downstream! Awesome! Cool! Epic!

And the fun doesn't stop there. Oh no. Open up that big... er... biggish front door and the interior that greets you is probably one of the best you'll find in a smaller Toyota. The gauge cluster has been relocated back to where the other 99.9% of the car market thinks it should be (and for good reason), giving Toyota's interior designers a chance to rework the interior in a much more conventional way. And although the resulting dashboard doesn't seem to be the most cohesive collection of shapes, it's a damn sight better than the Mickey Mouse-inspired centre stack of the old car (seriously; look at the heater controls on an old Yaris... it's Mickey Mouse in relief). And the materials... oh the materials. As someone that's never been the biggest fan of Toyota's easily gouged plastics, I can comfortably say that they've got it right with whatever formulation they've employed here. Offset by appealing highlights rendered in some sort of foam-backed, well-textured vinyl, the interior is a real-first rate effort that's been executed in a manner you don't often see in this particular class.

But there's a problem.

If you happen to be an average sized North American male, you will quickly discover that for all it's nice textures and materials, the Yaris' simply needs a telescoping steering column. Due to its abbreviated front end shrouding the motor, all its ancillary systems, the transmission, and drive axles, the pedal box is relatively shallow while the dashboard seems to be incredibly far away, perhaps in an effort to increase the amount of perceived space. Whatever the reason, you end up with pedals that are far too close to the steering wheel's plane, making it an incredibly uncomfortable car to drive. No matter where I put my seat or how I adjusted the wheel's tilt function, I seemed saddled with a long-armed, short-legged driving position that'd better suit an orangutan than any human form I've seen. At least the seats themselves are relatively comfy.

Now, I wish I could say that the driving behaviour of the Yaris has been treated to the same dramatic makeover that the sheetmetal received, but at the end of the day, there's only so much that can be done when you're dealing in pennies instead of pounds. With a small, obviously untaxed 1.5 litre engine producing 106 horsepower, the best way to describe the Yaris' engine might still be the same as that which described the last one: faithful. It might not elicit the same strong emotions as something more potent, but it will get you where you need to go, be that over the first kilometre on its odometer or it's 200,000th. Of course, being optimized for reliability rather than power also results in an engine that's pretty miserly, turning in a respectable 6.8 litres per hundred during my testing. 

When it comes to pound-for-pound, dollar-for-dollar, all-out value, it's damn hard to beat the subcompact segment. Oh sure, they might not have the nifty features of an $80,000 BMW or Mercedes, nor will they offer up the blistering performance of Italian exotica, but when you consider that you DO get for less than $20,000 is a car that passes numerous rigorous safety and emissions tests, is as reliable as your income tax, and sips fuel at a rate that would have had even Einstein impressed... well, little hatchbacks like this new Yaris can start to take on a pretty impressive air all to themselves.